Hide Yourself Away (14 page)

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On this quiet street in Newport, a principle has triumphed. For over two hundred years, the small synagogue standing here has testified that men may seek eternal truths in their own particular way without hindrance from the civil government. George Washington visited this synagogue twice, and every year, we observe the anniversary of his letter guaranteeing Jews the same religious freedom that all other Americans enjoyed. Allow me to read to
you a portion of Washington’s famous letter to the synagogue’s founding congregation.”

Zoe listened as the docent read the first president’s words with all the solemnity the young man could muster.

“All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural right.” The docent looked up for a moment, to make sure he had everyone’s full attention for Washington’s now famous words. “For happily, the Government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

The group followed the guide into the coolness of the synagogue interior.

“This is the longest surviving Jewish house of worship in the United States,” the docent announced. “As you’ll notice, the magnificent chamber contains a gallery supported by twelve Ionic columns, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. The five massive brass candelabra hanging from the ceiling are gifts from congregation members.”

The docent pointed to the east end of the sanctuary. “The Holy Ark contains the Torah scrolls. Ours is the oldest Torah in the United States. And above the Ark is a representation of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew.”

The group looked upward as the guide continued on.

“The raised ceremonial platform in the middle of the room is
the central bimah. From here the Torah is read or a cantor stands to chant. Take note of the mysterious trapdoor under the bimah, which leads to an earthen-floored basement room. The room below is said to have been used as a stop on the Underground Railroad to hide escaped slaves.”

As the tour group moved on, Zoe held back. She took her forbidden camera from her knapsack and trained it on the trapdoor.

  CHAPTER  
35

Even with a summer weekend head count of over 125,000, Newport was still, in many ways, a small town. Before the news could make the local television stations or
The Newport Daily News,
word of Madeleine Sloane’s death was spreading through the city’s full-time population.

At the kitchen of Seasons Clambakes, one of the lobster suppliers had heard it from one of the other fishermen down at the dock, who’d heard it from a friend on the ambulance corps. The ambulance had acted as a hearse, taking Madeleine’s body directly to the medical examiner’s office.

Mickey tried to keep his mind off Madeleine’s death along with his aching back and focus on the job at hand. There was still much to do in preparation for the big wedding reception he was doing this afternoon at Eisenhower House out at Fort Adams. The stately mansion, once the summer White House to President Dwight Eisenhower, sat on sweeping lawns and offered colossal views of Newport Harbor and Narragansett Bay. The tents on the lawn had been erected yesterday, but the linen hadn’t been delivered as scheduled. China, glassware, and silver service couldn’t be set until that linen arrived.

There was the familiar ache in his stomach again. The one that was his companion whenever he worried, which meant he had the stomachache pretty much all the time. He wrote it off as one of the hazards of having one’s own business. It went with the territory. But in his heart of hearts, he knew that it went back to something else.

The stomachaches had started when he was just eighteen and Charlotte Sloane caught him stealing that money at the country club.

  CHAPTER  
36

“New York wants a piece on Madeleine Sloane for the
Sunday Evening Headlines.
Since you have the interview with her, I thought I’d give you first crack. You want to produce?”

B.J. held the cell phone to his ear and made the mental calculations necessary to answer the senior producer’s question. Sure, it would be a coup to produce his first piece for
Evening Headlines,
but he still had some editing to do on his piece on the history of the Vanderbilt family, already scheduled for tomorrow morning’s broadcast. Still, blowing off the opportunity to produce for
Evening Headlines
was not a smart career move.

“Count me in, Dom,” B.J. answered, knowing that this would be a late night. He’d do the package for
Evening Headlines
and finish his piece for
KTA
afterward.

“Constance won’t be arriving until about four o’clock,” Dominick O’Donnell said. “You’ll have to plan on writing the piece for her, and you can shoot her stand-up after she gets here.”

Jesus,
thought B.J.
Anything else?

“Am I editing, too?” he asked, dreading an affirmative answer.

“I hope not, but we’ll have to see how things shake out.”

B.J. flipped his cell phone closed and looked for Grace in the thinning crowd. He spotted her talking to a dark-haired woman near the WPRI satellite truck.
God, Grace is a stunner,
he thought, looking at the first woman who had truly interested him since Meryl. That budding romance had ended so painfully that he’d protected himself from getting really involved with anyone else. Maybe it was finally time to break the drought.

He headed toward Grace, his mind speeding ahead to his more immediate concern, reviewing his elements for the piece. All right, he had the interview with Madeleine Sloane—that was exclusive material and should be the highlight of the package. He had the video of the shroud-covered body being carried up the steps and loaded into the back of the ambulance. And he had gotten some sound bites with onlookers at the cliff. But he’d have to give some background on the strange twist of Madeleine’s mother’s disappearance and the identification of her remains just the day before. He could use the video of Shepherd’s Point and the slave tunnel to cover some of that narration, but he still needed pictures from fourteen years ago. He uttered a silent prayer that Grace was having some success with that.

“Oh, B.J. Hi,” Grace said as he reached her. “This is Pam Watts. Pam is an anchor at WPRI in Providence.”

B.J. extended his hand to the anchorwoman, noticing immediately her kind, dark eyes and winning smile.

“Pam covered the story of Charlotte Sloane’s disappearance fourteen years ago. She has video of the fund-raiser at the country
club the night Charlotte Sloane disappeared, along with some of the search that was done afterward,” Grace continued. “And she thinks her station will let us buy the file tape.”

“There
is
a God,” B.J. whispered. He could have kissed both Pam Watts and Grace. But it wasn’t the first time he’d wanted to kiss his new intern.

  CHAPTER  
37

Zoe collapsed on her bed, exhausted by the heat of an American summer. Not bothering to unlace them, she pried the trainers off her feet, disgusted. If her documentary was going to be any good at all, she was going to need much more than thirty seconds of video of a trapdoor at a Jewish synagogue.

She knew what she wanted to capture, but Zoe was beginning to think that it was going to be harder than she had anticipated. She wanted to re-create, more or less, a female slave’s voyage to freedom. Her research had located a worthy subject in a slave named Mariah, who had stolen away in the cargo hold next to the boiler of a passenger ship sailing from Norfolk, Virginia, to Newport. The trip was nearly unbearable because of
the heat and dust in the airless room, but somehow Mariah and ten other fugitives had survived. Assisted by a bold sea captain, Mariah and the others had been dropped off at the ocean entrance to the tunnel at Shepherd’s Point. From there, Mariah had been smuggled to the Touro Synagogue and then to the Bethel A.M.E. Church in Providence on her way to freedom in Canada.

Don’t you dare get discouraged,
Zoe told herself as she played back the video of the synagogue’s trapdoor on the tiny video screen.
You have no right to be disheartened. Think of what Mariah went through.

Producing a documentary or winning a job at KEY News should be nothing compared with that.

  CHAPTER  
38

Grace was mesmerized as she watched Constance Young stand on the Cliff Walk, the bright blue of the Atlantic Ocean framing the anchorwoman’s blond hair. Constance was dressed in a pair of white slacks and a navy-and-white-striped nautical-style top, oozing presence from every immaculate inch. Did she have star
power, or did her position automatically make her a star? Grace suspected the former. There were other morning anchors who, while good at their jobs, did not have Constance Young’s telegenic appeal.

B.J. handed Constance a copy of the script he had roughed out, having highlighted the part where Constance would be on camera. She was to appear in the middle of the piece, after the explanation of the events known so far regarding Madeleine’s death and the sound bites from her interview, bridging to the story of her mother’s disappearance. The newswoman read it over a few times, signaled she was ready to begin, and disappeared down the Forty Steps.

Hoisting the video camera to his shoulder, B.J. stood at the top of the stone staircase and called out, “Go.”

Constance began her slow walk up the steps toward the camera. “Was Madeleine Sloane’s death an accident, a suicide, or a murder? Police are trying to figure that out, but this is not the first time that the Sloane name has been associated with mystery in this city by the sea.”

“Got it,” said B.J. “Got it right on the first take.”

“I think we should shoot another one,” said Constance. “The wind was blowing my hair in my face.”

B.J. hadn’t noticed it, but he wasn’t about to contradict Constance. Whatever the anchorwoman wanted was, by definition, fine with him. Constance went back down the steps and retraced her steps up, recording another perfect bridge.

He liked to imagine what it must have been like to be the lord of one of these manors. He never grew tired of the game, though lately, with his bum knee, Gordon didn’t enjoy his customary Sunday-afternoon constitutional along the Cliff Walk as much as he once did. Today, in fact, he’d had to force himself to get out. Sitting at home and brooding wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

As the professor stopped to watch the KEY News people doing their work, he knew he had to clear his head. Not only did he have papers that needed grading and an important lecture to give tomorrow afternoon but he was expected to report to the
KEY to America
broadcast location at 6:00
A.M.,
with lots of fascinating historical anecdotes to offer the television audience from 7:00 till 9:00. He had to get to bed early tonight. The exercise and salt air might help him sleep.

Gordon doubted that combination would be enough.

Just as he’d had many sleepless nights after Charlotte’s disappearance, he knew he would have many sleepless nights after her daughter’s death as well. Though Madeleine had helped him persuade Agatha to open the tunnel, she wasn’t enthusiastic about seeing the project continue. After her mother’s remains had been identified as having lain there for fourteen years, Madeleine didn’t like the idea of tourists traipsing through the tunnel. Gordon had gotten the feeling at the clambake that
Madeleine would have been a big problem in his quest to get the tunnel restored.

A big problem. If she had lived.

Grace noticed him first.

“B.J.,” she hissed, “there’s Professor Cox. He was sitting with Madeleine at the clambake last night. Want to see if he’ll say something?”

The producer looked in the direction Grace indicated and then glanced at his watch.

“Good catch, Gracie. But we don’t have time now. We have to get back to the hotel and have this piece edited. We can get the professor tomorrow, if we need him.”